The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August

Chapter 45

“Good God,” he said. “Fancy seeing you here.”

He was only a few years older since I’d seen him last, those centuries ago, still a fresh-faced young man barely clipping his early thirties. Somehow he’d managed to find a pair of grey suit trousers and well-kept brown leather shoes, polished up bright to wear. An oversized greenish tunic was more in keeping with his Soviet style, and a thin beard of fragile curls was an attempt to enhance his age, and he was Karpenko, and he was Vincent Rankis. He was followed almost immediately by two armed guards, rifles raised. They at once shouted at me to get down, to put my hands above my head, but he silenced them with a gesture.

“It’s all right,” said the man known as Karpenko. “Let me handle this.”

Vincent Rankis, sometime student, as British as they came, his Russian flawless, his eyes full of recollection. The night he’d attacked me in Cambridge, he’d also vanished from his rooms. I’d used every resource in my power to track him down, but every name had led to an empty nothing, every enquiry ended in a failure. Vincent Rankis, I’d been forced to conclude, had, legally speaking, never existed. But then neither had I.

For a moment I couldn’t speak, all the tactics and questions I’d had in mind briefly suspended at the sight of him. He took the opportunity to flash me a brilliant smile, before glancing at the commander and saying, “Comrade, may I have the room?”

The commander looked to me, and through lips turned to sand I mumbled, “Fine by me.”

The commander rose carefully, walked to Vincent and paused, turning his head by the young man’s side to murmur, quietly but audibly, “He has a gun.”

“That’s fine,” replied Vincent. “I’ll handle it.”

With a nod, he dismissed the other soldiers and, moving around the commander’s desk, settled himself down in the large chair with an easy confidence, folding his fingers together in front of his chin, elbow resting on his crossed-over knee.

“Hello, Harry,” he said at last.

“Hello, Vincent.”

“You here about our Daniel van Thiel, I assume?”

“He pointed the way.”

“Self-important little man,” said Vincent. “Had this incredibly annoying habit of telling everyone how brilliant they were, which was of course nothing more than a demand to be informed how brilliant he was himself. I’d hoped he’d help resolve some of the monitoring issues we’ve been having, but in the end I had to let him go. Little wart was bright enough to remember a few technical specifications, though. Should have killed him months ago. And your journey here–via Professor Gulakov? Did you like him?”

“Yes, very much.”

“I’m afraid he’s been sent away for re-education.”

“I’m sorry to hear that. But then this is a very gun-heavy operation you seem to be running. Had to kill many to preserve it?”

He puffed impatiently. “You know how it is, Harry. Can’t risk introducing too much new technology into the course of the linear timeline without being able to control the consequences. Risks drawing attention, rocking the boat–you’re Cronus Club, you must know all about that. Speaking of which…” he flicked a fingernail casually against the ridge of its neighbour, making a soft thwap-thwap noise “… should I be expecting the combined forces of the world’s Clubs to descend on me any second now?”

“The Clubs know my suspicions, if that’s what you’re wondering, and are under orders to pursue the matter if I vanish.”

He groaned, throwing his eyes up to heaven in exasperation. “That’s incredibly tedious, Harry, actually. What people never realise about the Soviet Union is how much bureaucracy there is at the middling level. It’s all very well if you’re the general secretary–people know better than to take notes then–but for anyone further down than Politburo there’s a huge amount of documentation that has to be accounted for whenever shutting down or moving these projects.”

“Doesn’t sound very secure,” I admitted.

“Politics,” he spat. “Everyone is always looking for material to use against everybody else–my point being, Harry, I could really do without the frustration of having to move bases again. Do you think the Club will find you, if you vanish?”

“Maybe,” I replied with a shrug. “Is that the situation we’re looking at here? Am I going to vanish?”

“I don’t know, Harry,” he murmured thoughtfully. “What do you think?”

For the first time our gazes locked, and there was no student there, no young man wanting to go punting on the Cam with a girl called Frances to embarrass a rival, but an old, old man in a young man’s body, staring out from those still-round eyes. I pulled the gun from my coat, laid it quietly in my lap, finger inside the trigger guard. The movement caused his eyes briefly to flicker, before settling back on me.

“Not for me, I trust?”

“Just in case reporting back becomes difficult.”

“Of course–a bullet for your brain. How determined of you. Although…” he shifted gently in his seat, shoulders twitching in what might have been a shrug “… what do you really have to report?”

I sighed. “I don’t suppose it would be too much for you to tell me what’s going on here?”

“Not at all, Harry. Indeed, it is my hope that, once you are aware, you may even join us.” He stood, gesturing courteously towards the door. “Shall we?”